Living-Deliberately.com

Though I’ve used a laptop as my personal computer for well over a year now, until now I’ve only used my wireless portability within the various rooms of my house. I liked having the option of working at desk, kitchen table, bed, or front porch. When I left the house, it was almost always with all four kids in tow, with a list of errands to run and stuff to obtain, so sitting around in coffee shops and internet cafes was simply not part of my wireless environment.

One of the best luxuries of high-speed, wireless capability, I’m finding, is that business and communication need not come to a stand-still though the rest of my world may be uncertain and constantly changing. And this, makes it so much less of a luxury and more a necessity in order to accomplish certain tasks. What a blessing my laptop and wireless card have been! I can grab a cup of caffinated-courage and keep up with email, get the news, take care of book-keeping changes and when I’m done, move onto the next deadline or location-to-be. Not as portable as my Blackberry-using friends but a world away from having to “get back to the office”, freaking out that things were going down the proverbial toilet in my absense. As I write today, a daughter is doing school work at the table with me as we uber-multi-task through a day that will no doubt hold many, many redirects. Technology can almost seem like a grace sometimes with the freedom and flexibilty it affords.

And so a new challenge has become part of my travels: finding the free wi-fi. Others who’ve gone before me gave a little list of who’s got it and who doesn’t. And someone pray tell why Starbucks can charge BOTH 4.50 for a latte and 10.00/day for internet, when Krystal next door offers admittedly poor coffee but free wi-fi? This has confounded me on more than one morning, when coffee cravings assault (I get just the brew, not the latte) and drive over to find the free wireless. So much better to be lounging in dusty sunshine amid the boxes of christmas french presses and chocolate covered coffee beans….but I digress.

Anyway, one day this week had me jaunting down to a major city in the south and then back again before nightfall. The chosen rendevoux was an Olive Garden parking lot in what they called, “a shopping area”. And HOW. What it really was, of course, was a vomitous ode to commercialism and gaseous emmissions due to extreme traffic, that could only slightly be blamed on the coming holiday. I decided the best way to handle it was to pick the shopping pod closest to the restaurant, stay on that one side of the gridlock, and ferheavensakes stay out of any stores! And then I remembered I needed to check my email….

A call to a local provided a tip to find a McDonald’s….yessirree, McD’s also offeres free Wi-fi, and I found them…BUT they do not have a single power cord in the entire dining room! This was after I bought their fake-food, promising myself that it could be my one-annual McD’s “meal”. That was also after watching 10 minutes of the most profound inefficiency possible, in an empty restaurant utterly overstaffed with clueless teenagers and an even more clueless manager, who could not understand why I’d ask for a power outlet. If you have to ask then…..

A sympathetic listener directed me to a panera in the mall. Malls are kinda devil-playgrounds in my pov but I steered my car in that direction and we circled twice, not finding any such bread company. What WAS there was, you probably guessed it, a sunny, warm, Starbucks with a brick patio and smart people all about. With resignation, I parked.

45 mintues, one tech call, and one intelligent and helpful student nearby later, I was on. Thankfully that day pass is good for 24 hours and I used it three other times in other locations before it expired. What’s more is that I was soon back in familiar territory, where panera has it for free AND good coffee to boot. Oh, and they are neither overstaffed, nor under, and quite efficient from the looks of things.

And so I offer my plain-coffee-one-cream in salute to panera bread company…you get it right. Thanks a bunch.

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